Wardrobe Refashion gets CRIFTY

There's nothing like a couple of rainy days and work-overload to make you want to have a good old closet sort out.

Within a couple of hours, I had a nice tidy closet with lots of room for new things (hurray!). I'm visiting with my folks next week and I always ALWAYS end up shopping with my Mum.

So, there was this for the charity shop:

And this for refashioning/ repair:

I can't decide whether to call this crifty (crafty+thrifty) or thrafty (thrifty+crafty). Either way, it's a couple of hours of crafting fun that costs no money - in fact, it saves money. So I can justify buying myself a new set of GHD stylers :)

I bought a set of three of these types of tops. They looked nice in the catalogue, but turned out to be shapeless, boring and unflattering. This picture does not do justice to how shapeless and baggy this top is. I only ever wore it for cleaning out the horses.
Restyle 1: I cut off the sleeves and resized the body by sewing (using a ball needle and stretch stitch setting) the sides again about 2 inches from the original side seam. I hemmed the arm holes. I tried the top on and measured under my bust (about 4 inches from the bottom of the arm hole). I then attached a length of ribbon just at the sides, so it would tie under the bust. I added a couple of iron on motifs from my stash.

Restyle 2: I cut off the sleeves and resized the original body. I cut the bottom off a jersey tunic which I loved but had ripped across the bust. I made bell sleeves out of the old tunic (I just cut across the bust, then split the bottom section in two and re-sewed to make sleeve shapes, using the old brown sleeve as a size guide for the arm-hole) I also removed the faux buttons from the brown top, and the faux white undershirt piece which was in the V-neck, and replaced with a section from the patterned tunic.
Refashion 3: I cut off the sleeves and resized the original top slightly, keeping it still quite loose fitting. I cut the collar and sleeves off a too-small shirt and stitched them to the blue top. Be careful to make sure you keep left and right sleeves on the correct sides or the fit will be wrong. I used lots of pins for the collar and sewed it inside first (inside of collar to inside of neck), then folded over and top stitched it on the outer edge of the neck (under the collar flap) to catch the raw edge within the stitching.

I also took off the faux buttons and faux undershirt piece and used a hook and eye fastening to bring the neck edge in.

Refashion 4: This was a polo shirt that I loved but refused to stay fastened and kept bursting open, and a cute T-shirt (size 8!!!). The T-shirt was tightest across the shoulders so to ease that I cut out the sleeve pieces, leaving just the neck intact. This made a vest shape which then slipped over the polo shirt, covering the gaping area.
You can't see very clearly but the polo collar comes over the top of the vest.

I also made some darts in a baggy shirt to make it fit better.

I finally got around to sewing a ripped side seam in a much-loved knitted sweater.

I removed the tatty lace from around a vest top and replaced it with new lace.

I found a corset style top which was too small (another size 8! my boobs must have grown a lot lately!) which I fixed by making an insert from cotton and sewing under the corset fastening, so that the lace can be left looser and what would have been exposed skin underneath is covered by fabric. I haven't taken pictures of these ones though.

I am left with a pair of trousers which are nice but are made an itchy fabric, they need to have a lining made up from cotton, and a plain white but too-big T-shirt which is going to be turned into a halter top when I get around to buying some lace for it.
I hope you enjoyed this little fix-it. If you want any further details, send me an email and I'll happily send you the destructions.